


Two Become One

by tielan



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Partnership, Sex in the Drift, Sexual Fantasy, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:01:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3961960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they Drift, it’s just a glimpse – one split-second moment in the whirl of memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Become One

**Author's Note:**

> From [this](http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/2747.html?thread=4712635#t4712635) Pacific Rim kinkmeme prompt.
> 
> They haven't quite gotten to the real-world sex part, yet. But they've been about this point for, oh, a year now, so I'm posting this much.

The first time they Drift, it’s just a glimpse – one split-second moment in the whirl of memories.

It starts with their first memory – umbrellas in the rain, startlement, surprise. Their Jaeger standing proud and reborn in the Shatterdome. Her opinion, his defence.

_in the doorway of his room, naked to the waist, smiling an invitation_

It flows away. Raleigh lets it go. He doesn’t chase the RABIT.

But he wonders.

* * *

The fight for Hong Kong is a cacophony of experience – his, hers, Gipsy’s. And the Drift flows between them, flickering awareness in the back of her head, odd glimpses that overlay the here and now of their fight against Leatherback.

Bright neon in slick rain, an empty sea and a fishing boat, waves of rain spattering around the helipad—

_scarlet lips parted, panting through sodden strands of blue-tipped black, slicked skin wreathed in steam_

It is only a momentary flash. Here, then gone.

* * *

Pitfall is slower, steadier – without the urgency that drove the fight for Hong Kong. There’s time to learn, time to linger, time to ease the rough edges into sync.

_like sex the second time once the edge is rubbed off_

Raleigh doesn’t mean to think that, doesn’t mean to think of the slim stretch of her body underneath him, naked and welcoming.

_drowsy smiles in morning sunshine, and the scent of hot and roused flesh in the cotton sheets_

It’s not the time to think of such things when they’re on their way to close the Breach. It’s not the place when they’re all suited and armoured and harnessed up and about to fight _kaiju_.

Maybe later.

* * *

Mako occasionally dreams of crossing the hall to Raleigh’s room in the midnight hours, of climbing into his bed in naked submission and raw possession.

_the angle of his head is an offering and she receives his kiss as though it’s her due_

He pulled back after Pitfall, tactile and caring but also careful.

She is glad of the space at first – Drifting with Raleigh was more intense than she expected, and when all was said and done, he was still in so many ways a stranger – and yet as the days grow into weeks, she begins to regret the walls that have developed between them.

He does not try to close the gap, and so she does not try to breach the walls.

_his hand skims the length of her spine, fingers curving against her skin in tactile wonder_

And then they are offered the chance to Drift again.

* * *

As they ease into their circuitry suits Raleigh wonders if he should apologise. Because nothing can be hidden in the Drift – every thought, every word, every fantasy is stripped bare and laid out for your co-pilot to see.

_nails dig into his lower back, urging him deeper as she hooks her legs higher on his hips yes oh raleigh yes_

And Mako’s as important to him as Yancy was - more. Losing Yancy broke him, but he survived, got back on his feet again.

If he loses Mako…

She won’t be revolted by him but he doesn’t want her to feel pressured, either.

He’s been careful not to push her, not to make her think they have to be joined at the hip. What was acceptable in wartime could be unforgivable in peace. And she’s young and she should get to choose, not be coerced into it by his need.

So all the last few months Raleigh has kept his thoughts and his hands and his desire and his longings to himself.

_waking with his nose buried in her shoulder, his hands locked in the small of her back as she wriggles against him in sleepy pleasure_

Mako looks up at him as the techs fit the armour on them, and smiles. Love punches his gut, shoving the breath from his lungs.

Raleigh won’t apologise for what he doesn’t regret – not even for this.

* * *

The Jaeger is not familiar – _Winged Defender_ , a refurbished Mark IV – but the Drift with Raleigh is.

_laughter family terror kaiju loss grief_

“Neural bridge steady and holding,” Tendo says from the LOCCENT. “Looking good, kids.”

“We always look good.” Raleigh retorts as he turns and smiles at her.

_smiling invitation, slick skin in steam, drowsy smile, tactile wonder_

Mako touches the communications board, even as the thoughts and images slide through her head. “What is needed for this test?”

“ _Winged Defender_ , this is Marshal Hercules Hansen. We’ll start with a basic connections test. All sensors, all functions. You know the drill.”

They flow through the checklists that every Ranger who makes it to pilot potential is taught, like stretching after a hard workout, easing out the kinks. Raleigh leads because this is familiar to him, and Mako goes through the routines and settles into the rhythm of the Drift.

_he’s all hard muscle and graceful, golden beauty, and she thinks about going up and sliding her palm down his spine just to know what he feels like under her fingers_

Her breath catches, startled. Or is it his breath – surprise at the rawness of the thought?

_her touch is fire down his back, and he holds himself still and wishes she’d press against him – that she’d let him offer himself for her pleasure and satisfaction_

Mako turns her head to look at Raleigh. He meets her gaze for a few still seconds, then looks away, and the heat in her cheeks is not wholly her own.

_every night he watches her close the door to her room before he closes his own, and it still aches a little even though he’s accepted that she doesn’t see him like that, even though he’s accepted that he can’t make the first move, can’t let her think that she’s obligated to stay with him just because they’ve Drifted together_

They set their shoulders and the shoulder missile launchers emerge. The quiet resignation beneath his breastbone resonates between them in the Drift, a regret he internalised weeks ago, resolving to live with what she had to give him.

_behind the door, she sighs and wraps her arms around herself, because he needs this distance, even if his touch curls in her belly and his smile heats her dreams, he still carries the loss of his brother within him, and she cannot fill that emptiness although she assauged it for a little while_

His surprise and understanding is swift and startled, the reassurance that comes quickly after is warm – a rush of tenderness that buoys her as they relax and the empty weapons array folds back down.

Not a replacement for Yancy, but something else entirely.

A heart, a home, a shelter.

Someone to have and to hold.

 _Yes,_ she thinks into the neural connection between them, answering that which he hasn’t expressed in words. _Yes._

* * *

Raleigh never imagined that Mako might want him – not to keep. As a co-pilot and a friend. Someone to stand beside and fight beside. Just not to sleep beside or live beside.

He’d accepted that.

_standing over him as he sprawls on the mats, then stepping over his body and kneeling down so her hips rest over his, her eyes never off his face as she dry-humps him_

The realisation that she _does_ want him feels like that first encounter on the mats of the Kwoon, realising that this was someone who could read him, who could match him, who would meet him where he stood and who he could stand beside in middle of the storm.

Heat rushes through him – exhilaration and desire, the pleasure of Drifting with Mako again, the thrill of being wanted.

_biting his lip as she rubs her cleft against his aching length, cotton and elastane shifting as he fists his hands by his hips and tries to remember how to breathe_

They run through the checklist, comparing the Jaeger’s responses with the diagnostic results. All connections read green according to the system diagnostics, but something about the gyroscope in the left arm feels...off, and when Mako checks it in with Raleigh, he agrees and calls it in, “We’ve got an issue with the gyros down the left arm, LOCCENT. Please confirm.”

_she nips and bites and licks her way down his chest, grazing her teeth on his hipbone, pleased by the whimper that escapes even before she touches him_

His body, already adrenalised, feels heavy and hot, his blood throbbing as Mako’s laugh echoes at his reaction – in his ears? Or in the Drift?

“This is LOCCENT, confirming connection issues. Also…” Herc pauses.

_holding her wrists above her head so she can’t tease him back, sliding his cock between her thighs, teasing her and himself with the hot, slick promise of intimacy as she wails in frustration_

Someone in the background reports a temperature spike—

_underneath him, pleasurably squashed as he moves with an unbearable tenderness_

Tendo says it’s within expected parameters, given the circumstances—

_underneath her, captive and captivated by the sight of her losing herself when she orgasms_

And Mako’s blush heats both their cheeks as she realises LOCCENT is reading their drivesuit telemetry and they’re both fully turned on—

_hard and hurried atop her desk wet and breathless in the shower slow against the storeroom door with footsteps going by outside water sloshing around them in the bath slow and sleepy and satisfying in bed_

The diagnostics flow past them, checked, confirmed, reported.

And the Drift flows past them, too, powered by a want and a need that’s as fierce in her as it is in him.

 _we match,_ Raleigh says, _isn’t this how it’s supposed to be?_

 _yes_ , she answers, _oh, yes_


End file.
